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1. At ten to five it was already dark and pockets of fog made very slow, cautious driving essential. 2. Although the official story states that Ludwig killed himself, the circumstances of his death have never been satisfactorily explained. 3. She was the direct target of an attempt that killed four people and injured a further fourteen. 4. The train hit the bridge and the impact killed the driver and a passenger. 5. After the Normans, Malta saw troubled times, attacks by Saracens and pirates, falling by marriage and inheritance into various hands, including those of Spain. 6. Yesterday saw the publication of not one set of crime but two. The first, the police figures, tells of crimes reported to local police stations. The other, the British Crime Survey, records the public’s experience of crime. 7. The Renaissance saw the beginning of the great writing rift, the splitting away of literature from everyday speech. 8. Several things explain these differences. 9. This century has seen a long and tortuous journey towards today’s liberties. 10. The Santiago summit launched talks aimed at creating a 34-country Free-Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). 11. The headlines of Saturday, 6 June 1970 drew parallels with another case that took place less than a year earlier. 12. The news that evening was bleak. London felt ominous. Even leaderless. 13. Last week, Britain froze the charity’s bank accounts and opened an investigation into possible terrorist abuse of charitable funds. 14. Bombings in Iraq left at least 18 people dead and dozens wounded. In the worst of the attacks, a bomb blew apart a minivan used as a public bus in Baghdad, killing at least nine people and injuring 16, police said. 15. A survey published today finds that of the 1346 motorists questioned, 29 per cent claimed that partners criticizing their performance at the wheel was the biggest source of friction. 16. This type of cancer kills 4,000 a year and a trial suggests that screening could extend the lives of those who develop it by two and a half years. 17. The raid killed four civilians and a soldier. 18. Last week saw Hezbollah’s guerilla force inflict further casualties on one of the world’s most powerful armies in Southern Lebanon. 19. The up-dated, fictionalized version of the story will see the women of a Yorkshire farming community take the place of the Hungarian villagers. 20. Some estimates suggest that the trial process has already cost close to €20 million, money that Düsseldorf’s tax payers can ill afford. 21. The following Saturday morning found me at the Staff Development Centre. 22. Upheavals in the American economy partly explain it. 23. This week sees the announcement of a significant advance in the science of cloning animals.
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Текст 1
Renewables
A fifth of energy is to come from renewable sources – wind, wave and solar power – by 2020.
As they produce no carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases, they will play an “important” role, the review says.
Electricity companies are to be compelled to produce more energy from renewables.
The review sets out the advantages of tidal power. Plans for a barrage across the Severn could provide five per cent of UK electricity demand by 2020.
The cost would be around ₤14 billion but could raise environmental concerns, it said.
Wind power already generates enough power to supply a million homes. The planning system will be reformed to make it easier to build new turbines.
Текст 2
To advertisers, life is just an endless quest for somewhere to rest our eyes. Research done for London Transport Advertising has just revealed that passengers on the Underground prefer advertisements with a lot of print in them.
Reading the adverts, says LTA, provides “a safe entertainment in an environment where eye contact is virtually prohibited”. Perhaps what Procter and Gamble now need is a lot of wordy ways to sell soap powder.
Текст 3
Comet caused Dark Ages, says tree ring expert
A comet exploding in the Earth’s atmosphere contributed to the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West and ushered in the Dark Ages, it was claimed yesterday.
Studies of tree rings going back thousands of years have shown that the world experienced a sudden and catastrophic drop in temperatures in 540 AD.
The disaster led to repeated crop failures, famines and the spread of bubonic plague that may have wiped out around a third of the population of Europe, according to Professor Mike Baillie, a tree ring expert at Queen’s University, Belfast.
The plague of 542, triggered by two years of famines and bad harvests, also may have hindered the attempts of the Roman Emperor Justinian I to reconquer western Europe, altering the political make-up of Europe.
Tree rings can provide valuable clues about historical climate changes. A cold year, for instance, appears in the tree record as a narrow ring. Prof Baillie told the British Association that 540 had been shown to be a catastrophic year in Siberia, Scandinavia, North America, South America and Northern Europe. “It very probably started the Dark Ages,” he said.
He believes that the drop in temperature was caused by fragments of a comet exploding in the atmosphere, surrounding the world with a cloud of dust and water vapour.
Contemporary accounts from China and the Mediterranean reveal high meteorite activity in the 530s.
Professor Baillie called for historians to help to fill the gaps and look again at mythology from the Dark Ages for clues to the comet’s existence.
Other scientists have suggested that a super volcano in the 530s triggered a global climate shift. But Professor Baillie said there was no geological or historical evidence for such a massive explosion.
Текст 4
Sleeping with light on “risks children’s sight”
Young children who sleep with the light on are much more likely to be shortsighted when they grow up, according to new research published yesterday.
The study says that long periods of darkness may be essential for the healthy development of the eye.
Sleeping in a lit room during the first two years could leave a child five times more likely to have to wear glasses for short sight in later life.
The research may also have solved the mystery of why short-sightedness has become so widespread over the past two centuries. The increase in artificial lighting that accompanies urban development may be the answer.
Doctors questioned the parents of 480 children aged between two and 16.
Of those children who had slept in darkness before they were two, 10 per cent were short-sighted; a third of those who had had a night light became short-sighted. But the figure for short-sightedness among those who had slept with a full room light on was 55 per cent.
The researchers, who published their findings in the journal Nature, emphasised that they have demonstrated only a link, not a cause.
But experiments with chickens, have shown that the proportions of light and darkness to which they are exposed greatly affects the growth of their eyes and the development of focusing.
Professor Richard Stone, of the Scheie Eye Institute at Pennsylvania University, Philadelphia, said: “It would seem advisable for infants and young children to sleep at night without artificial lighting in the bedroom until further research can evaluate all the implications of our results.”
Gill Adams, a consultant ophthalmic surgeon at Moor-fields Eye Hospital, London, urged parents not to worry about night lights.
“The most important factor in a child later becoming short-sighted is whether the parents are short-sighted,” she said. “Environmental factors may play an additional role.
In the meantime, I would not deny any child who is frightened of the dark the comfort of a low luminescence night light.”
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